“Painting with Light” is held over the first weekend of every month – Saturday and Sunday. Two films – diptych – paired very deliberately over the weekend. I guess much like how a gourmand pairs food, wine, table setting, etc. to enhance the entire dining experience.

Philip is obviously passionate about film – specifically Asian film. I admire a person with passion, focus and actually doing something. Read about him here.

The first two films were screened on 5th and 6th of March. I watched both of them.

One movie is from the past (Saturday), the other from the present (Sunday). Both films are from the same national cinema and explore the same subject matter, but at different periods and different settings. The first two were Singaporean directors, the next instalment, Filipino, followed by Vietnamese and then Burmese.

This is from the Gallery’s website:

The inaugural edition of Painting with Light pairs a classic and a contemporary film from a national cinema in Southeast Asia each month. An older classic that addresses an important issue of its time will be screened on the Saturday, followed by a more recent film with a contemporary view on the same subject on the Sunday.

The first two movies were about being displaced from home. But I saw another theme in both movies – the tension between morality and love. In both movies the main players had to make morally tough decisions balancing love and doing the right thing.

What I really liked about the first pair is that not only did I enjoy the movies individually but also as I watched the pair, it made me reflect on how love, duty, morality and societal pressures have changed. In my worldview, morality and love should be absolute and unchanging. But that’s me. I tend to think about these things a lot.

I had the honour of meeting the curator too – a very unassuming gentleman. But if the first pair is anything to go by, the rest of the programme should be brilliant.

Waalkz is a company that I co-founded with my business partner. With the kind support of the National Heritage Board‘sHi2P grant, we developed our first 4 heritage walking tours in Singapore on Apple’siPhone platform. These tours cover Little India, the Arab Quarters (Kampong Glam), Boat Quay and Chinatown (Telok Ayer side).

The announcement was yesterday at the annual Business of Heritage Conference and the app will be available for download on the app store next week. Watch this space for the announcement on the day the app is ready for download.

To encourage trial, the Little India walk will be available as a free download. The others will be priced at US$1.99.

Do download and have a try. And please give us your feedback on Waalkz’s Facebook Page. You can see some screenshots there too.

If any of you work in organisations who would like to develop walking tours, message us on our Facebook page. We’re currently working on our website and will let you know when it’s out.